Rhys Ifans Peers "Through the Looking Glass"

The Amazing Spider-Man villain Rhys Ifans has signed on to play the Mad Hatter's dad in Through the Looking Glass the upcoming sequel to Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" says The Wrap.

Ifans is Zanik Hightopp--stepping in for Mark Rylance ("The Other Boleyn Girl," "Anonymous") who had previously been in talks to play.

The film will see the return of Johnny Depp and Mia Wasikowska as The Mad Hatter and Alice respectively. Helena Bonham Carter is set to return as The Red Queen. It's unknown if other "Alice" actors like Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover and Alan Rickman will return at this point.

Ifans is actually four years younger than Depp in real life, but with both covered in makeup and prosthetics that won't matter.

Sacha Baron Cohen co-stars as a villain named Time.

James Bobin is directing the sequel The first film's scribe Linda Woolverton returned to write the script for the follow-up.

Joe Roth, Suzanne Todd and Jennifer Todd will produce. 

Production aims to begin in June to meet a a May 27th 2016 release.